Flyin' Brian

I agree to a point. I think you’re limiting yourself if you don’t try to reach out to a bigger audience, but you’re right that the main product has to be good and something people want to see. There’s just not a mainstream draw right now that would make people want to tune in. There’s no Hulk Hogan, no Rock, no Stone Cold, no Cena, to give examples of wrestlers who were able to transcend wrestling and bring people in to see them. The brand by itself can’t do that. WCW with few exceptions never had people who transcended wrestling that were wrestlers, so they were always bringing things in from outside of wrestling for star power. AEW seems to be following that lead. WWF/WWE was able to create that buzz in the past but it’s been a long time since we have seen any wrestler with crossover potential in any promotion, partly because of the way they are presented and partly because of the wrestlers themselves.

I don’t know if in the long run that would be such a bad thing. Most comic creators in the beginning weren’t fans turned pros, they were just hired to do a job and trying to make money. There are some great creators who were fans and some that weren’t, but the worst things to come out of the fan to pro pipeline was being a slave to continuity and some stories being more or less paid fan fiction. There is some great stuff that came out of it but it’s also been a diminishing returns situation as the focus maybe shifted from telling the best stories to worrying about how everything fits together and obscure references. Wrestling sometimes suffers from ignoring continuity but that’s because they ignore it not to do something different but to keep doing the same things over and over again. Same as comics, there are good wrestlers that were fans turned pros and good wrestlers that came from other sports or were just looking for a way to make money based on the skills and attributes they had.

At some point though it seems viewership would finally drop far enough that they won’t pay for it anymore, or at least not enough. Maybe they think they can flip a switch at that point and make new stars or do something big to get popular again, but that’s a risky gamble.

They might be getting most of the people in that age bracket that are watching tv percentage wise, but overall numbers wise how many people is that compared to what the numbers were years ago? I guess it comes down to what you want to have, a bigger piece of a smaller pie that keeps shrinking or be part of something that has the potential to grow. Comparatively wrestling might look healthy when compared to the current tv landscape, but when comparing to past eras and to other things competing for eyeballs outside of the tv bubble maybe not. Just to provide a comparison, the most viewed Twitch stream in 2021 topped out at 2,390,718 viewers. Has any WWE programming hit that number this year?

They might be getting most of the people in that age bracket that are watching tv percentage wise, but overall numbers wise how many people is that compared to what the numbers were years ago? I guess it comes down to what you want to have, a bigger piece of a smaller pie that keeps shrinking or be part of something that has the potential to grow. Comparatively wrestling might look healthy when compared to the current tv landscape, but when comparing to past eras and to other things competing for eyeballs outside of the tv bubble maybe not.

It’s not just wrestling. I see it in comics and other things too. I think part of it has to do with how it is presented and consumed. Wrestling is mostly presented via television, where a lot of younger people have migrated towards other places for their entertainment (video games, streaming, etc.) Wrestling is available in those forms but it’s not the primary form. YouTube and WWE on Hulu are just regurgitated parts of the main shows for the most part, not much content is produced primarily for those channels. The people that are producing that content are primarily the wrestlers themselves and now wwe is cracking down on that. The other parallels I see are appealing to older fans through the characters and storytelling instead of creating new stars and new ideas. Corporate culture where ‘the brand’ is the most important thing and what is primarily promoted and not the wrestlers themselves doesn’t help bring in new people. If anything that turns off younger viewers, whether it is an anti corporate/anti capitalism feeling or it just not being ‘cool’ to support a company instead of the people actually doing the work. I think if a company wants newer and younger fans they need to go to where they are and appeal to them directly, not wait for them to come to where the company already is. They need to produce a product that is made for them not their parents or grandparents. Family friendly/generational is ok but the new stars need to be made and put on equal footing at least as the old ones. The wrestlers themselves need to take precedence over the company, because they are who newer fans will latch onto.

I meant more now, but yeah there’s no excuse for that.

Wow. Did not see that coming. Not much in ring value, maybe as a special attraction and put over the younger guys some.

That is sad, if true. Maybe part of it is them working for different companies that are competitors.

They have a Roku channel.

The Great Tio. He was the television champion for a long time in Angelo Poffo’s ICW. Only reason I know anything about him was from doing research on ICW for the 1983 fantasy booking project years ago.

Miss Elizabeth? But I understand that’s comparing apples and oranges and a unique case. Still, babyface manager she was.

Eddie Kingston has been awesome but I hate seeing him lose so much. Maybe there will be a face turn coming up and partnership with Moxley but either way I’d like to see him win some matches.

Who is that guy on the right? His 70’s jacket over a t-shirt look is awful.

That’s great. The Thing was a wrestler in the 80’s too, Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation where the wrestlers had superpowers. Had their own GLOW type division called The Grapplers too. Good stuff.

That’s Oprah Winfrey isn’t it?

Or they can just lean into it and he can have a match with King Maxel Hardy

Dustin followed up to say Funk’s hip had been bothering him and he was in a lot of pain. Hopefully that’s all it is, and it passes soon.

Jax 3:16 says I just hurt my ass.

https://bleedingcool.com/tv/njpw-roku-channel-finalize-weekly-tv-series-deal-starts-next-week/

Crazy prediction for Men’s Royal Rumble winner: Mustafa Ali

Just watching Royal Rumble 2018 on the network. Final four was Cena, Reigns, Balor, and Nakamura. The crowd chanting ‘you both suck’ when Cena and Reigns faced off was hilarious. Crowd wanted Nakamura to win.

Those are some rough clips.

I have Comcast XFinity and get Peacock free with that. Hopefully they’ll keep most of the old stuff up.

Sigh. There are so many Trump signs still up in my neck of the woods it’s ridiculous. The cult isn’t going away unfortunately. I’ll stick to wrestling that isn’t a reminder of that.